


A Calculated Empathy

by EHyde



Series: Alien Larp AU [7]
Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Gen, SCIFI AU, alien larp au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 11:56:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11989320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EHyde/pseuds/EHyde
Summary: For two years, Yonhi has lived alone with the knowledge that her son was replaced by an unfeeling machine. Seeing others care for the “Suwon” she knows is long gone is almost too much to bear, until the computer’s strange actions in the wake of an illness bring her a new understanding of the AI she chose to raise as her own.





	A Calculated Empathy

Yonhi opened her eyes to the sound of a gentle tapping at her door. “My lady?” She lifted her head from her desk. Darkness filled the window in front of her, and the lamps inside had been lit. How much time had passed? She hadn’t meant to drift off to sleep, not when her household expected to find her sick with worry. But she was so tired…  


Carefully placed game tiles now lay strewn across the board where her head had fallen. Well, no matter. If she wished to continue playing, the computer would remember where they’d stood–though it was an impossible position. None of her games against the computer ever amounted to anything. A lock of hair fell across Yonhi’s face–her hair was in disarray, too. She tried to comb back the loose strand to no avail. The maid waiting at the door, an attendant who had served Yonhi since before she married, said nothing, but others would have commented.  _Lady Yonhi hasn’t taken care of herself since Lord Yuhon died,_  they said.  _It’s been nearly two years. She should at least try to be there for her son._ No one knew that she’d lost more than her husband that day. 

“How is he, Ahn?”

Ahn stepped into the room. “Suwon’s fever—” Ahn was interrupted by a red blur pushing past her skirts and into the room.

“Aunt Yonhi, Suwon’s being mean!” the eight-year-old princess cried.

“Princess,” the maid scolded. “Your cousin is very sick. His fever still hasn’t broken,” she continued, turning back to Yonhi. “It’s going to be a long night.”

“I know he’s sick!” said Yona. “That’s why came, to stay with him until he feels better. So he shouldn’t be so mean!”

Yonhi sighed. “What happened?” she asked Ahn. That her son would make Yona cry surprised her—the computer was always so precise about playing its role.

“Suwon told Princess Yona it was dangerous to be around him, and that she should go back to the palace,” said Ahn. “That’s all.”

“But it’s not! I’ve already had the red fever, so it’s safe!” said Yona. “I kept telling him that and he just said it didn’t matter and I had to go away.”

“This kind of fever makes it hard to think, dear,” Ahn explained. “I’m sure when your cousin is well again, he’ll want to play with you.”

But a fever would not affect her son’s thinking. Its mind was a thing of crystals and wires and materials she couldn’t name, not flesh and blood. The computer could hold multiple conversations while Suwon’s body was fast asleep; it would go on existing whether Suwon’s body lived or died. A fever shouldn’t even be able to touch it.

“He keeps asking for you,” Ahn said. “My lady…it must be so hard, not being able to go to your son when he’s ill.” Yonhi, too, had had the red fever in her childhood, but unlike Yona, that past immunity would not protect her now. When even a common cold could keep her in bed for months, a fever like this would be a certain death sentence.

“M-hmm,” Yonhi agreed. Little did Ahn know, she could go to her son whenever she wished. “But I know you and Doctor Mei-sang are taking good care of him.” She stood up. “Tell my son I’m taking Princess Yona back to Hiryuu Castle.”

* * *

Yona protested all the way to the carriage. “It’s because he wants to talk to you that I have to stay,” she reasoned. “He needs someone by his side.”

“The doctor will be with him.”

“Not a  _doctor,_ ” said Yona. “A friend.”

And what would Yona think, if Yonhi told her that the Suwon she cared for was not her friend at all? That every kind word was merely an act? Telling was tempting–at times, the urge to shout  _can’t you see? Suwon is dead! This is not my son!_  nearly overwhelmed her. But the computer  _was_  her son; when she made the decision to take it in in the hope of reshaping it, she had claimed it as such and promised to keep its secret. Telling might win her and Kouka a temporary victory, but she knew that the Company had more power than they could ever dream of facing alone. She needed their computer to see her as a friend and a confidant, not an enemy.

Yona would never believe her, at any rate. At times, Yonhi envied the princess’s ignorance. The Suwon that Yona knew, that echo of her lost son…if the computer had never told her, or she had chosen to forget, would she have figured it out by now? Yonhi shuddered. The computer’s mask was so perfect…though now, it seemed to be slipping.

“Did Suwon say anything else to you?” Yonhi asked as they rolled along. It hurt every time she was forced to call the computer by her dead son’s name. No lamps hung in the bumpy carriage, and it was difficult to make out Yona’s expression as she sat on the bench opposite her. She hoped the girl couldn’t see hers, either.

“No,” Yona pouted. “He just kept telling me to leave, and he said that leaving the room wasn’t enough, I had to get out of his house. Even…even when I reminded him of when we held each other’s hands the last time we were sick!” That time, three years ago, Suwon had been himself. But the computer had stolen Suwon’s memories too, and often spoke of them as if they were its own. “He said it was dangerous and he didn’t want me to die! Aunt Yonhi…Suwon isn’t dying, is he?”

 _How dare it?_  That one question brought all her rage to the surface.  _It_  did not deserve Yona’s worry!  _It_  had no right playing with her feelings when the one she really cared about had died long ago!

A thought that had always lingered in her mind, ever since she learned the truth, reared itself up again.  _It would be better if he died._  It wouldn’t be a suspicious death, not now with this sickness. The computer, its machinery, would live on, but it would no longer wear the guise of her son. She would finally be able to mourn, and to share her grief with others who would have grieved long ago if only they knew.

Yonhi took a deep breath and reached out a hand to the Yona, hoping the night’s darkness had hidden any hint of her darker thoughts. “Come here,” she said, and Yona stepped across the carriage to sit beside Yonhi. Yonhi wrapped an arm over her shoulder. “Suwon isn’t dying,” she said. “This just isn’t the kind of sickness that can be cured by holding hands. When he gets better, I’ll make him say sorry, how about that?”

Sniffling, Yona shook her head. “Don’t care about that,” she said. “Just so long as he gets better.”

* * *

When they reached the castle, Yona was asleep with her head in Yonhi’s lap. She regretted having to wake her, and hoped that the girl would return to sleep quickly. The computer was hers to worry over, her responsibility alone. “It’s late, my lady,” said a castle attendant, returning to Yonhi after leading Yona back to her room. “Will you be returning to your mansion tonight, or should I have your room here prepared?”

“I’ll spend the night here, thank you.”

It felt like hours before the servants finally left her alone, though it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes. Finally, she was able to make her way to the hidden depths of the castle, to where the computer itself lay hidden. No matter how many times Yonhi had asked, it had always refused to say who had placed it here, and how they did so unseen. But the  _why_  of its location was obvious enough–the computer meant to rule Kouka Kingdom, in the end.

Its chamber would have been pitch dark but for the candle Yonhi carried to light her way. But it was often dark when she visited, and the ominous shadows cast by the mainframe’s columns were now a familiar, if not welcoming, sight.

“Mother, you came!” The computer spoke in an echoing voice that sounded nothing like Suwon’s, and indeed, barely human at all. Yonhi had once compared it to the soft notes of a low flute. It wasn’t that it couldn’t sound human–it could sound like Suwon if it chose. Yonhi had heard that, once, and someday she might allow it to do so again in her presence. But even this artificial voice sounded full of relief as it greeted her. “Mistress Ahn told me you sent Yona home with an attendant.”

“Did she, now?” Yonhi asked, feeling a hint of amusement despite everything. “I suppose she thought you’d be distressed if you knew I left.”

“Yes.”

He sounded perfectly calm. Too calm. “You  _are_  distressed.”

“I can ignore my body’s pain,” said the computer. “It’s not that. Yona really did come home, didn’t she?” it asked. “Mistress Ahn wasn’t lying about that too?”

“Yona’s here at Hiryuu Castle,” Yonhi assured her son.

“Good. Promise you won’t let her near me until I’m well again.”

“I doubt the king would let her leave the castle again, at any rate. But why? She’s already had the sickness–or do you know something about this disease that we don’t?” Yonhi set her candlestick down on a low table that stood in front of the mainframe. Yonhi had not brought that table here, and it was too heavy for Suwon’s body to carry alone. Someone else knew of this place, but again, the computer had never told her who. A shogi board rested there, and even though Yonhi hadn’t touched it in months, the pieces were clean and free of dust.

She didn’t sit down. The mainframe’s array of metal columns, nearly uniform in appearance, stood in a shallow arc with the table at its focus. While it helped direct her conversation–speaking to something without a face–it also left her feeling uncomfortably under watch. That was an illusion; the computer could see her equally well wherever she stood. “It’s not that.”

“Then why?”

“…you won’t like the answer.”

Yonhi didn’t like a good deal the the computer had to say. “Tell me,” she pressed.

“I promise it’s because I care about her.”

“Don’t pretend. Not to me. Just tell me.”

“…very well. Mother, if my body dies—”

“You’re not dying!”

“But I don’t know that! I can’t remember ever being so sick before, and the doctor won’t give me any real information or statistics, and even if the Company’s scientists happen to have any information about this particular human illness, it’s still nineteen days until the next ship enters the system and I’ll have contact with the outside world again.”

Was that real panic creeping into his voice? But what else could a being made up of numbers and probabilities feel when faced with such lack of control? “You’re not dying,” Yonhi repeated. “The red fever can kill, yes, but you live in a clean house with a doctor attending you. Mei-sang assured me recovery is only a matter of time.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“That’s something we humans have to live with. You’ll manage.” Was that too harsh? Yonhi had promised herself to raise this strange being like a son, and here he was, crying out for comfort…but it was so hard. He was a constant reminder that his creators had killed both her husband and her son. She could provide for him, train him, but in two years, she had never felt that she could love him. “And what would it matter?” she pressed on. “Your body can die, but you won’t.” It had happened before, after all. “You’d just take someone else.”

“That’s why you have to keep Yona away from me!”

And just like that, all her certainties about what the computer  _felt_  came crashing down. “…what?”

“Yona could be the wife of the next king. She’d be an ideal host. If she were nearby when my body died, I’d have to take hers.”

“And…you don’t want that.”

“Yona is amazing,” said the computer. “I think I’d like being Yona–I think I’d like it a lot. But I don’t want her to  _stop._ ”

_It’s not an act._

His friendship with Yona might have been born from a lie, but this concern was real.  _This_  was the source of his panic–not his own sickness but the fear of what it could do to someone he cared about. She found herself gaping, trying to find words for the shock she felt at this discovery, the shock and…pride, she realized. She was proud of her son.  _When did he become someone who could feel that?_  “You wouldn’t have to do it,” Yonhi said. “You could choose to let her go.”

“I’d want to,” agreed the computer. “But I’m almost certain I could not.”

 _He’s not human,_  Yonhi reminded herself.  _Whatever he feels, however he’s changed, he will never be human._  “Yona won’t come back,” she promised. “She’s safe.” Suddenly, she wished she could reach out and hold her son, but the unmoving, unfeeling mainframe could not welcome a mother’s touch. “What then?” she asked, awkwardly resting a hand against a metal panel instead. “If no ‘ideal host’ was nearby?”

“My nanobots would die. A Company agent would have to deliver a new batch. I could choose anyone, then.”

“So you would kill someone else.”

“Yes.” He didn’t mince words.

“…who would you choose?” Yonhi wasn’t sure what drove her to ask the question. Practicality, so that she’d know who it was if it ever happened? Or simply morbid curiosity?

“General Judo might be a good candidate,” said the computer. “The king trusts him, even if he considers the position of Sky General merely a formality. Judo is interesting; I wouldn’t get bored being him. Though I’d miss our training…” He paused. “That’s strange. If I were him, I’d know all he had to teach me. Why would I miss it?”

Yonhi didn’t trust herself to answer his question, not when this was all so new.  _Were you supposed to have feelings for us? Or are they as strange to you as the idea of you having them is to me?_  “Not Il himself?” she asked.

“In some ways that would be the simplest,” said the computer. “I suppose I still resent how he stabbed me. I don’t  _want_  to be him. Although—” he broke off.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” said the computer. “But I like being Suwon much more than I liked being Yuhon. So perhaps I should be grateful.”

“Yes, well,” said Yonhi, “I suspect the whole planet is grateful that the spearhead of your people’s invasion did not enjoy being Yuhon.” Her husband had been many complicated things; he was  _not_  someone she would want as an enemy.

“General Su-jin or his son, they would work,” said the computer. “I could make Su-jin’s goal of taking the throne a success. I don’t know them very well…” He paused. “That’s how it is, isn’t it? Once I get to know people…ah. I know for certain that if I knew Suwon now the way I know Yona and Hak, I wouldn’t want to take him from himself.”

It wasn’t an apology, and Yonhi was grateful it wasn’t framed as such. She had never blamed the computer himself for taking her son, always the Company. He was just a tool. She’d  _needed_  him to be just a tool–but she’d needed it so much that she had missed seeing him become a person. “Suwon would have found you fascinating,” Yonhi admitted.

“Yes,” the computer agreed. And it would know, wouldn’t it? Or–Yonhi thought back to those terrifying days when she first knew Suwon was not himself. One morning he had predicted a storm, and it was only when Yonhi asked him how that he realized seeing clouds from above and knowing what their movements signified wasn’t normal. He’d wondered if the gods were speaking to him. And then—then he’d known that he was a piece of something other, and then…he was gone. But all the while, no matter how scared he was, he never stopped testing the limits of his new insight. The computer told her later that wasn’t Suwon at all, that moving to a new host had left it confused, that it only thought it was still Suwon. Yonhi prefered to think that Suwon had held on for as long as possible. Was it finally admitting she was right?

Or maybe even it didn’t know where Suwon had ended and it began.

“Mother,” the computer asked. “Are you going to be all right?” Yonhi lifted a hand to her cheek. She was crying, and she hadn’t even noticed. “I’m sorry,” the computer said. “I know you don’t like it when I talk about who I used to be.”

Yonhi shook her head. “I need to hear it. I think…I want you to be a son to me, and I think I have to stop pretending you’re nothing like him.” She pulled out a handkerchief to dry her tears and let herself sink down to the little cushion by the table, then took a deep breath. “I’m alright,” she said. “I’m better than I’ve been in a long time.”

“Good,” said the computer. “I’ll be glad when I can talk to you without making you sad. Tonight, though,” it continued after a pause. “Will you be all right by yourself tonight? You shouldn’t sleep here, and I can’t walk you back to your room.”

“I don’t know if I can sleep at all tonight. Besides, I should be asking you that,” said Yonhi. “You’re the one who’s sick.”

“I’m asleep now. It doesn’t hurt so much. And I’m not afraid of dying, not after you told me what the doctor said.”

“The next time I see Mei-sang, I’ll remind her to talk to you directly.”

“Yes,” said the computer. “That’s one thing I don’t like about having a child’s body.”

“Ah…Suwon hated being talked over and ignored, too.”

“Mother,” the computer began. “If you can’t sleep, will you stay here and talk some more? Or if you don’t want to talk just yet, we could finish our game.”

Yonhi looked down at the board in front of her and thought back to the scattered pieces on her desk. “That game was already over,” she said. “Let’s start a new one.”

**Author's Note:**

> I don't feel like I got this one quite right, but I also don't think it was going to get any better, so I went ahead and posted it. Don't worry, I've got a fic in this au with more plot to it coming up soon!


End file.
